They sauntered down Queen Street towards the quayside or sat at the cafe tables outside the team hotel in the Sunday sunshine but their empty eyes spoke of a darkness inside. The sense of shock pervading the Wales camp after the events that conspired to remove them from the Rugby World Cup on Saturday night was still evident as players and officials rested before gathering themselves in preparation for Friday night's third-place play‑off against Australia.
Sam Warburton, sent off for a dangerous tackle in the 18th minute of the 9-8 defeat by France, was to be seen in the corridors, looking his normal self – a reassuring sight for those who feared the 23-year-old Wales captain might have been thoroughly traumatised by the incident that shaped the game. Meanwhile the debate over the decision of the referee, Alain Rolland of Ireland, raged on among both Wales supporters and neutrals.
Not all men in blazers are idiots and the ones who framed rugby union's Law 10.4 (j) were trying to protect the players of a sport that has seen vast increases in power and speed over the decade and a half since the dawn of the professional era, a change profoundly altering the dynamics affecting the physical challenges intrinsic to the game.
Forty, 30 or even 20 years ago Wales would not, as they did at the start of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, have fielded a pair of half-backs measuring 6ft 3in and 6ft 1in and weighing 16st 5lb and 15st 1lb. Those are the statistics pertaining to Mike Phillips and Rhys Priestland. By comparison Gareth Edwards, Barry John, Rob Howley and Robert Jones were flyweights. The ante has been upped and it is measured in Newtonian terms: force, torque, mass.
Rugby union's lawmakers, like their soccer equivalents, now find themselves having to frame laws dealing with the kind of physical contact that has far more potential to cause real damage. Whereas the velocity and muscle mass of the average tackler have increased hugely, the joints of the average human body receiving the challenge – whether of the neck, the knee or the ankle – remain unaltered as they try to absorb a much greater degree of impact.
Hence the wording of Law 10.4 (j): "Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground whilst that player's feet are still off the ground such that the player's head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play." As was emphasised in an IRB memorandum last year, and underlined by the instruction of their supremo, Paddy O'Brien, before the start of the tournament, referees are instructed to respond to such an offence by thinking first of a red card.
It was just unfortunate that on Saturday night at Eden Park the player deemed to have contravened Law 10.4 (j) was the wrong man in the wrong match. When Rolland dismissed Warburton he was penalising one of the outstanding players of the tournament and ruining a potentially marvellous spectacle – particularly, of course, for the Welsh.
Warburton, 6ft 2in and 15st 8lb, had lifted the 5ft 10in, 14st 2lb French wing Vincent Clerc in the tackle with such ease that Clerc's hips quickly rose above the horizontal, meaning that his next direction of travel was down. The Welshman did not drive his opponent into the ground, as Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga infamously speared Brian O'Driscoll into the Christchurch turf early in the British and Irish Lions' first Test against the All Blacks in 2005. He let go and allowed Clerc to fall. What he should have done in the circumstances, according to the law, was keep hold and turn his opponent so that the two of them could hit the ground safely: much easier said than done.
"It was a fantastic rugby league tackle," said Dave Ellis, the former league player who has been France's defence coach for the past 12 years. "Unfortunately we're not playing rugby league and the rules of rugby union say you can't do that." As to the red card, Ellis pointed to recent suspensions of three and five matches (Fabrice Estebanez of France and Sukanaivalu Hufanga of Tonga respectively) for similar tip-tackle offences in the contest between the two sides earlier in the tournament. Both players, however, were merely yellow-carded during the match itself.
Rolland's reaction to Warburton's tackle was immediate, leading to criticism that he should have consulted his touch judges and sneaked a look at the replays on the stadium's big screens. Instead he responded to what he had seen with the action he had been programmed to take and many neutrals refuse to blame him for unbalancing the contest.
"With 15 against 15 I have no doubt in my mind that Wales would have won," said Kobus Wiese, the giant lock of South Africa's winning team in 1995, who is remembered by the Welsh for laying out Derwyn Jones with a punch in an international in Johannesburg later that year and was at Eden Park on Saturday night as a commentator for South Africa's SuperSports TV channel. "They are a far more consistent side, they're very well coached, they play with massive passion, they've got some really good players.
"But you can't fault Alain Rolland. He blew it according to rules which are there, and rightfully so. But I think the application of the rule must be looked at by the IRB. Take away the red card and cite somebody afterwards to keep the game fair. There's 60,000 people who've paid a lot of money for their tickets and millions watching around the world. There's a lot at stake. And Wales could have been in the World Cup final – and probably won it, if you're a believer in Welsh rugby. Now they're playing for third or fourth spot. Very disappointing.
"It was a dangerous tackle, there's no doubt. I think it'll count in Sam's favour that he released the player, but the rule says clearly that if you lift the guy higher than your shoulders, it's definitely a yellow card or a red card. Maybe if Alain Rolland had stood back and taken a breather, he might have said, 'OK, because of the occasion, because of the game and everything else, let's give him a yellow card.'
"There's nothing wrong with protecting players but maybe it's time that the red card was ruled out of rugby - I'm not saying if there's a dangerous tackle people should not punished, but rather do it after the game. There must always be a fair contest. So use a yellow card."
Rolland's decision to go by the book may have wrecked Wales's dream of a first final, for which there is no consolation, but once the ache has started to fade they will take comfort from an outstanding campaign. To beat 14 Welshmen, Marc Lièvremont said, France had to show "courage, pragmatism and intelligence", and defend for all they were worth. The gains were no mirage. And on that matter, at least, opinions from all sides are undivided.
